Controlling Credit
Central Banking and the Planned Economy in Postwar France, 1948–1973

Monnet analyzes monetary and central bank policy during the mid-twentieth century through close examination of the Banque de France.

Eric Monnet (Author)

9781108400084, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 October 2019

352 pages
23 x 15 x 1.8 cm, 0.5 kg

'Controlling Credit is a valuable book and will remain an inescapable reference in the emerging literature about postwar central banking.' Stefano Ugolini, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

It is common wisdom that central banks in the postwar (1945–1970s) period were passive bureaucracies constrained by fixed-exchange rates and inflationist fiscal policies. This view is mostly retrospective and informed by US and UK experiences. This book tells a different story. Eric Monnet shows that the Banque de France was at the heart of the postwar financial system and economic planning, and that it contributed to economic growth by both stabilizing inflation and fostering direct lending to priority economic activities. Credit was institutionalized as a social and economic objective. Monetary policy and credit controls were conflated. He then broadens his analysis to other European countries and sheds light on the evolution of central banks and credit policy before the Monetary Union. This new understanding has important ramifications for today, since many emerging markets have central bank policies that are similar to Western Europe's in the decades of high growth.

Introduction
Part I. Institutionalizing Credit: Introduction to Part I: chronology and methodology
1. French credit policies before 1945
2. The nationalization of credit from 1945 to the late 1950s
3. Development then gradual de-institutionalization: the 1960s and 1970s
Part II. Managing Credit: 4. Monetary policy without interest rates. Domestic macroeconomic effects and international issues of credit controls
5. Blurred lines. The two faces of Banque de France loans to the Treasury (1948–73)
6. Financing the postwar Golden Age. The Banque de France, 'investment credit' and capital allocation
7. The rise and fall of national credit policies. Implications for the history of European varieties of capitalism and monetary integration
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economic systems & structures [KCS], International economics [KCL], Economic growth [KCG], Monetary economics [KCBM], Economics [KC]